- Introduction

Hi, and Welcome! My name is Ian, and If you are new here, this would be my blog…:-)  The following post, is actually a reprint of my dare I say popular article marketing blueprint, which I shared with many of my readers back in November of 2008.  As with everything else in the often changing online marketing space, these strategies are an evolution in progress and process, with some strategies even more effective today than when first printed, and others, de-emphasized and recalibrated for more powerful, and profitable permutations.  Nonetheless, I do believe with every fabric of my being that if you NEED to make money, and make it happen in a hurry ( and don’t have a bunch of cash to invest up front) the strategies outlined below are some of the easiest ways to get there very quickly. 

And if this approach to article marketing resonates with you - I encourage you to sign up for our list, and stay abreast of some of the best FREE ways to amp UP your efforts (and income) with simple strategies that work like magic.  Plus, other than my obvious natural charisma and trascendent good looks,  I’m also a pretty damn entertaining writer to boot.  And I get lonely easily.  So keep me company – come back often and for lots of FAR better free stuff than the rambling writings below – sign up for our list immediately on your right. 

This is not ONLY a big part of my existing business, but will be a LARGE part of how we are building LifeMasteryLabs.Com as well, from a simple idea that popped into my mind at 3 am one insomnia filled evening…..to what I, and some of my peers expect to be a large, thriving and exciting company playing on the cutting edges of helping folks like you succeed, excel and push powerful and passionate new paradigms in every area of our lives.

I’m passionate about helping people, and I’m passionate about online marketing, and I can’t think of a better way to marry the two than to start our inaugural report off with something that I truly believe will help you with both.

So if you’re ready to discover some dead SIMPLE success strategies for making money online…..these are the questions and answers you are going to want to ask, (and read) to build your OWN burgeoning online business predominately, on the broad shoulders of FREE article marketing and content creation strategies that are outlined below.

And If you’ve been spending any time searching for the “perfect” online business – the secret tactic, the ONE missing link, ingredient or bit of information you’ll need to make a fortune online….I’m here to tell you it doesn’t exist.

All paths to profit require effort, energy and SOME expertise. Anyone who tells you otherwise has something to sell you – or has a pathological difficulty with telling the truth.

What you are going to learn here – alternatively – are ways to quickly and easily leap frog the learning curve, high step the high hurdles and decimate the dependence on high priced products, gurus and other nefarious nonsense, and FINALLY, gain control over your own online marketing plans, profits and future.

I know of no other way, that evens the playing field and does it quickly – than article marketing can accomplish for ANYONE who chooses to learn it’s magic.

Why you should trust me? You shouldn’t. I’m not asking for your trust, your faith – nor your money.

I’ve written this guide as simply as I can, for the most part, simply answering questions that have been asked of me, and then collating and codifying them into this short report. But what you have in your hands right now is very powerful. Make no mistake: If you are ready, this information, and your application of it’s simple but guiding principles will change your life.

It has been written with smart people in mind – folks who are willing, able and enthusiastic about making real, material and quantifiable changes in their own lives.

Let’s take a quick, broad view look at the landscape before we begin.

I write this just before Thanksgiving week 2008, the world is in turmoil. The financial markets are in a complete and utter meltdown, a wild and woolly ride on a stupefying surfboard that swims, lurches and lunges up and down on a daily basis.

People are losing their shirts…..and their pants aren’t far behind.

Layoffs are the news of the day. Japan announced it’s officially in a recession yesterday. Car makers, credit card companies and mortgage makers are begging, pleading and pandering for our hard fought tax dollars.

Things don’t look to promising for any of us. Or do they?

I say yes.

I say you CAN write your own financial ticket online starting right now, today, in this very minute should you choose to.

And the deceptively simple words on the following pages WILL help you do it.

If you TRULY want to be successful, you will be, and I’ve laid out everything that you need to get there.

It’s been formulated through my own ferocious failures, powerful profits, wins, losses, amazing ups, and debilitating downs and just about every other sensation on the emotional and economic totem pole of making a living online.

Every success story shares roughly the same ride – as too will yours. If I can make your journey a bit easier by illuminating my experience – I’m happy to do it.

Lastly, I will say without reservation – I’m not good at much in life.

I have a terrible sense of direction. I’m disorganized, occasionally sloppy, I eat way too much junk food and watch FAR too much Law and Order Special Victims Unit re-runs on late night cable.

I am, however, though really good at 3 things.

• I’m an excellent tennis player
• I can see Aura’s (mine is purple which means I’m friendly and open, yet still a little mysterious, sort of like Lorenzo Lamas in the show Renegade)
• And I throw away more money making ideas in a week than most people will come up with in a lifetime.

While my tennis teaching days are behind me, and style is a hard thing to get across in one of these things, I’m hoping to give you a whole bunch of help with number 3..;-)

Again – the style may be informal and unorthodox for what you are used to reading in one of these “reports” – but this is how MY mind works best in soaking up and assimilating new information.

I want to hear the questions I personally ask internally – articulated out loud, and I want the free flow answers to follow thereafter.

With this in mind – before we get into the Questions and Answers Style format that most of this report adopts, lets’ take a quick peek at one of the very FIRST post’s I made on my own blog that celebrated how effective article marketing has become in my business.

Let’s begin.

- How to Write Articles the Convert Like Crazy: Make Big Profits in Affiliate Marketing with Fun (& Free) Article Marketing Strategies

One of the very best ways to promote a new site, service or offer is writing articles. Article Marketing is tedious, time consuming and mind numbingly monotonous, but it is also is just about the EASIEST way to print money straight from your keyboard.

I’ve often said that if Tony "Scarface" Montana were to have discovered article marketing in that Cuban detention center, rather than Columbian gold, we would probably have watched Al Pacino work his way up the Internet marketing totem pole rather than suffer the ignominious fate of a disgraced cocaine trafficker.

Article Marketing is smart, profitable, and you’ll never have to worry about dying in a hail of machine gun fire after you submit them.

But, if you’ve tried using articles in your marketing machine, you may have found less luck with their results than those people like me sing about regularly.

Let’s take a look at some potential reasons why, and how I’d fix them in your shoes.

- Note:This is EXACTLY what I do when I begin an article marketing campaign – it works for me very well….and will do the absolute same for you if you apply these simple strategies in your own.

Pick a Product: You NEED to start here.Don’t do your keyword research first…and then try to squeeze a relevant product into the keyword list you’ve generated. If you are doing this – you are working ass backwards.

- Go find a good, solid high converting product that you think you can write about and sell.

I’m a big fan of the bum marketing stuff, as it’s simple, clean and has been shared for free…but the biggest mistake I see here is the resulting reliance on Clickbank sort of products. Go out and sign up for CJ.com – Link share, etc – and get REAL products in your affiliate marketing arsenal.

-Nothing says you are relegated to selling cheap E books on picking up women and teaching your dog to moo like a cow. Clickbank is like training wheels on a bike: Important to have when you start, but if you are still using training wheels 5 years later, you know you haven’t’ made it out of the neighborhood yet.

-Sign up for REAL affiliate programs, with national offline marketing campaigns and name recognition that you can piggy back off of to immediate profitability.

( ie – people aren’t reluctant to rent DVD’s from Blockbuster, or weight loss products from Medifast – but they very well be for high hype, low recognition product lines you’ll find on the smaller affiliate networks specializing in digital products )

Do your Keyword Research: I’d recommend you pay for your keyword research too. It’s quicker, cleaner and easier than using all of the free tools that are available in fragmented forms in disparate spots.

I use and recommend Nichebot. Is it perfect? No, it’s not. Is it worth 10 bucks a month to have a wealth of competitive intelligence at your fingertips? Yes, it most certainly is.

Don’t write your titles like you would on a blog or website. Blog posts are rife with "how to’s", "top ways", etc – this is a proven way to increase readership and generate incoming links, but it’s NOT what you want to do with articles. If your keyword phrase for example is "write articles" – rather than title it like I have done for this blog post, you would simply bring the keywords to the front of the title – and shift the "how to" towards the end, like so:

"Write Articles that Convert Like Crazy: Here is How You Do it!" – or – "Write Articles for Fun & Profit: Stunning Success Strategies You Must Not Miss!".

Always front load your title with your keywords when submitting to the directories, because the keywords, and their location in the title text is probably not only the PRIMARY driver to their position thereafter in the search engine results – it may be the SOLITARY driver as well.

Don’t mess this up, you aren’t writing link bait – stick your keywords up front. ( you can actually re-write the article for your OWN site this way and post a modified version of it there as well)

Be resourceful with your resource box.

Do write a benefit laden, eyeball pulling, collar dragging, incentivized, compelling, cajoling, coercion creating reason for them to click on your links and come face to face with your offer, free report, squeeze page, etc.

Do NOT write about your personal biography, extraordinary good looks, high school cheer leading awards, don’t have a picture of yourself in sunglasses or a tank top, don’t refer to yourself in the third person, and don’t list your full resume. You aren’t looking for a job. You only want a simple click of the mouse.

It’s quite easy to get – and once you cut out the extraneous noise in the close, you’ll find it much easier to get more.

This is a trick I’ve tried and tested repeatedly, and in MOST markets….it works like a charm. I almost hate to share it – but here it is anyway.

- Write VERY short articles. And lots of them. Keep the articles UNDER 320 words. Under 300 for Ezine Articles ( the granddaddy of Article directories) is best.

But…here is the trick.

-Create one LONG resource box that you save in your author account.

Break it up into several paragraphs, each paragraph has a link to your offer page as above.

( Ezine will accept two links in the resource box as a matter of policy – I’ve found that more often than not – they’ll take three without complaint if you are a solid contributor to the community:  Update – EZA will no longer accept more than 2 links in your resource box – use them wisely)

Your resource box in this example should be a STRONG close….and should APPEAR to be part of the article – ie – almost no transition between the preceding short article and the saved resource box.

- As you are allowed to "sell" in the resource box area…this simple approach will seemingly extend the article with a strong sales message, live links, and solid close, in EVERY article you submit on this topic, as this is your default signature file for each.

This works tremendously well for me, and I attribute a lot of my article marketing success to this, and this alone.
As a quick point of reference and "proof" on the above method – I worked with someone privately on optimizing her article submissions over the past two weeks.

Prior to our coaching sessions, her articles were getting an average of between 20 and 100 views per month – and she was getting an abysmal CTR in the resource box – about 10% give or take, which as she and I discussed, is absolutely terrible, especially considering she is a pretty girl and had a picture of herself in the profile..:-)

We made a few of the revisions I mentioned above, added some better keyword research tools, a more compelling offer and STRONGER WRITING ( which is imperative if you want to succeed) and our views not only went through the roof…but the CTR as you can see in the screen shot is pushing 50% in many of the more popular articles of the group – and cumulatively, in a VERY expensive market ( Womens Health) this set of article submissions alone, which were ALL done in ONE day, have resulted in about 1000 new visitors to her once lonesome landing page.

- Which makes me feel good – and gives her the positive reinforcement to know this CAN be done successfully after all!

Hope this was a help to you as well..:-) Be sure to ask questions if any of the above wasn’t clear!

I hope you enjoyed the preceding post…and it gave you a bit more perspective on the potentials, possibilities as well as my own particular process for article marketing success.

If you are still interested in learning more……let’s now move on to the main report below. Enjoy..:-)

1. Why article Submissions are the best way to build an online business on a budget?

It’s very simple. Articles serve many masters….and a multiplicity of purposes. Let’s take a closer look at a few of them below:

1. Articles are a great way to create long lasting and powerful back links to your site, service or offer.
2. If set up properly, articles can be re-directed straight to an affiliate program for dead simple autopilot cash creation.
3. Articles can become great blog posts.
4. Articles can become the landing page content you need to create trust for your opt in form or name squeeze.
5. Articles can become part and parcel of your e book, teleseminar, or pod cast.
6. Articles can be made into phenomenal link bait.
7. Articles can be time sensitive and make a great press release too.
8. Articles can make great squidoo lenses & Hub Pages.
9. Articles Make Great Spider Food for Feeder Sites & Remote Blogs
10. Articles can aggregated, compiled and uploaded to shareware and community sites like Scribd.
11. Re purposing is key!

Articles are the content foundation from which the rest of your business can be built.

-2 Using Resource Box Redirection: Where do you send the visitor after they’ve read your article?

It depends on your goals.

Are you trying to make quick and easy cash? Straight affiliate re-directs are a dead simple and mathematically scalable and predictable way to make easy affiliate commissions.

Simply track the effectiveness of how many hits the affiliate link needs to convert one sale – look at how many clicks you are getting in the resource box per article, and do the math.

You’ll find it gets pretty consistent to the point where you can simply WRITE your own ticket by gaging how much each article is worth on a per published basis, and then devoting the time you need to meet your income goals.

Are you simply trying to get the message out about your own site, service or offer?

Write until your fingers hurt.

Every single article is like a little army of one….spreading your message subtly and serendipitously to the masses who are eager to hear what you’ve got going on. ( just like what you are reading right at this very moment..;-)

3 What About Linking Straight to a Blog? Is this a Good Strategy?

Is it effective? Yes. Is it Optimal? Not for me.

Direct linking your articles to a blog is NOT my favorite way to build blog traffic, as visitors tend to dart around a bit, have LOTS of material to peruse, and often will bookmark your blog for further consideration later…..only never to return.

(RSS subscriptions notwithstanding)

If I have to blog build and use articles to do it?

Make sure you have a Feedburner RSS EMAIL notification button (and are using the RSS email service they offer – it’s free) so that folks who DO sign up, get notified via an email when you post, and NOT via a simple feed reader update.

Blog traffic, unless you are a reasonably popular celebrity blogger, is a bit tougher to re-cycle.

Your best bet, if you are NOT going to re-direct to affiliate – is send all of the article traffic to a landing page that has SOME content ( note – not a squeeze page alone) and link THAT page to your blog to pass some link juice and traffic to your blog in a smart way. You’ll get some folks who will bypass opting in….but will be intrigued by your content – and will link to the blog at the bottom of the page.

Or – they will simply shorten the url down to the base url ( ie. Landing page. Html) and find your blog that way. (unless you put your blog on a sub-subdomain, or another directory that a less astute browser won’t discover)

-4 Okay…..I want to link Directly to the Affiliate Vendor. What Kind of Conversion Percentage Should I Expect on Affiliate Products?

Depends on the program. Some affiliate programs are dead simple to get clicks but are FAR harder to convert.

Sexier topics are like this – and will send buckets of backsides at your offers – but will convert at a significantly low percentage for you to be wondering what the hell is happening.

Don’t sweat it – or worry – it’s all about the math.

Figure out the quantities of clicks that result in a sale, and then scale the math up and out to meet your income needs.

Average percentages on many click bank products (digital downloads) is going to be anywhere from .05% -2% on the high end on straight redirects. Not great…..but who cares? If you are able to control LOTS of traffic with each article submission, you simply adjust the quantity to meet your daily income goals accordingly. Or, you could try our next recommendation instead..;-)

- 5 How Can I am UP my conversion percentage? Specificity Sells!

Write more specific articles. It’s really that simple.

The more granular and specific your article titles are – the more specific they rank for the specific searches – the HIGHER your conversion percentages are going to be.

Sounds pretty obvious, right?

Good! It is. Let’s look a bit closer.

“Where to Buy Medifast: the Best Place to Buy the Medifast Diet Online”

or

“Medifast Diet Coupons: Here is a Great Place to Save Money on Medifast”

is OBVIOUSLY going to convert a hell of a lot better than a generic article title.

Why?

It’s quite simple.

People who are searching for the phrase “Medifast Diet Coupons” and finding your article are already ready to buy.

Your article is simply the bridge they need to find to walk across to make the purchase.

The smoother the stroll is to go from search query – to article – to purchase -the better your conversion percentage will become.

Smart marketers like us try to meet folks where they live on the buying continuum, and the MORE purchase ready they are, the easier they will be to target with specific keyword combinations.

For example – “i pod 20 GB black used” is NOT a window shopper, right?

This person is ready to buy – don’t you agree?

Of course you do.

So an article that has this sort of title – or an article on your blog that has this sort of keyword content that RANKS well, and links properly to a resource to PURCHASE aforesaid black, used, 20GB i pod is going to be pretty easy money for sure!

Conversely of course…..

“Best Diets to Lose Weight:” is NOT the same place on the buying continuum – as these folks are simply looking to lose weight – and have not yet fleshed out how they are going to do it – ( i.e. – fasting/sprinting/liposuction/Indian vision quest sweating ritual/ or Medifast..:-)

The quantity of queries – vs purchasers in this sort of example is going to be stacked AGAINST you from a conversion percentage basis. (although arguably, the higher volume of traffic potential makes it worthwhile to attack nonetheless)

Again -

Writing articles that meet people in the places that are most proximal to purchase is the most successful strategy – and one that 99% of folks will never figure out. ( but hopefully you now will..:-)

6 What Kind of Resource Boxes Work Best ?

Ah….the magical mystery and confusing conundrum of writing resource boxes that convert, right? Help is on the way!

First, It Depends on the niche, but as I pointed out above in the “how to write articles that convert like crazy” blog post, I happen to really like long ones that appear to be part of the article.

In other words – you create a long resource box that flows from the last sentence in a seamless stream, and people don’t have their guards up yet, as they not only DON’T feel like they are being sold….if you do it right, they STILL think they are reading the article body text.

This approach takes a little bit of getting used to, and when people start to get familiar with it, ( and your particular article writing style) it will begin to diminish a bit in effectiveness.

But, that said – I’ve had articles that have had click through rates at close to 60 and 70% (which is unheard of high) for quite a large number of views, using this simple approach at extending the articles in a conversational ( and slightly sneaky) way…..with the live links looking like (or appearing to be) part and parcel of the body copy.

( and NOT the expected links that all of us tend to resist a bit in the resource box section)

A smooth transition between body text, and closing selling proposition will always outperform a clearly delineated sales proposition that is obvious to the reader.

But, that said, you the truth is, you’ve STILL got to test this, as some niches perform better than others using different approaches.

Other MORE straightforward ( and less slight of hand) conventional conversion tactics that work well in the resource box?

• -Free Reports are great. ( click here for free something or other)
• -Make a big promise. ( at last! Instant Self Confidence is a Mouse Click Away!)
• -Offer protection to the reader. (Warning! What you Don’t Know About X…..”
• -Use Time as a driver to take action. (Time Sensitive! 72 More Hours to Get…..)

Easy enough, right?

- 7 Do you link Your keywords, or the URL in the Resource Box?

Both.

And mix it up.

ALWAYS, use at least one keyword phrase link at a minimum. The second link can be the URL.

Sometimes try BOTH keyword phrases and NO URL.

In my experience, keywords always will outperform the URL’s.…but occasionally using a web address for branding purposes is important – and I do it at least some – on every campaign.

(especially when you have a memorable URL you want to get out in the public eye)

For example – one of mine for a Jewish dating site we were promoting a while back was:

www.JuicyJews.Com

The novelty effect of this domain was FAR better for click through rates for a while, and was much easier to “brand” the site as well across our target demographic.

 

Or – for a Yoga site we are developing similarly -

www.Yogatobekidding.com

Very same philosophy. The novelty of this domain name is worth spreading as well, and gets a straight click through rate that is strong with all promotional materials.

Here – I like to see my URL passed around a bit due to it’s novelty – rather than simply the key phrase jewish online dating, – or yogas supplies – which are the phrases I would be targeting.

But, in general, call to action keyword phrases will ALWAYS have a better conversion rate in your articles

8 Article Titles: How do you do them for maximum ranking power?

Front load your keywords.

Always, The primary keywords should be as close to to the beginning – followed by as second instance – and if you can do it – and NOT kill your click through rates – even a third. Like this:

Medifast Diet Tips: Lose Weight Fast on the Medifast Diet (Weight Loss Advice for You)

In this article title I’ve covered 3 possible occurrences of my target keywords

1. -Medifast diet tips
2. -Lose weight on the Medifast diet
3. -Weight loss advice

Why is this effective?

Simple.

When this article is indexed – Google ( and the other search engines) will give it consideration on any one of three possible, and POPULAR keyword combinations….giving me ample ammunition to rank this well on a multiplicity of queries.

Does it work?

Absolutely.

I’ve had one article – as above – have the number 1 position on Google, for ALL three of my target phrases, and in less than a week, thanks to piggybacking off of the page trust that directories like Ezine Articles.com have earned in the engines.

The key is to experiment and measure the results for yourself. 

– 9 Do you recommend Short Article titles? I see a lot of people submitting 5 or 7 word titles like so – “ lose weight quickly”

No – generally I don’t.

In my experience, the shorter the article title, the less likely the article will rank highly, ( or stay) in the search engine results page for long.

I prefer longer, more verbose titles with more possible incarnations and instances of my keywords in the title – and if possible, framed within a powerful and passionate promise.

Medifast Diet Tips: Finally! A Phenomenal Way to Lose Weight Extremely Fast (Best for People Like You)

Again – we are covering our keyword combinations (Medifast diet tips, way to lose weight extremely fast, lose weight fast) and we’ve got some curiosity words that add passion and excitement – which I love to do with all of my content.

 

- 10 Are there good Secret Strategies that Guarantee Great Click Through Rates?

There are NEVER guarantees when it comes to conversion and click through rates. There are however, some universal truths that seem to be reliable enough to count on niche to niche.

Here is one I use a lot on our campaigns – and it’s crushes for me always – we call it the the “Double P Formula,” and I only call it that because it’s important to have names for this sort of thing so people think it sounds more impressive than it really is.

What does it stand for? The “Proven and Parenthetically” article title technique.

How do you use it?

Very easy.

Use the word “Proven” in your article -and use a set of parentheses at the end of the title to finish the thought in an abstract, sort of odd kind of way.

Why?

Well, “Proven” should be relatively obvious.

People want proven results, proven tips, proven facts and using the word Proven seems to give them the re-assurance that they are getting it..:-)

But the Power of Parenthetically is a bit more pernicious to nail down..:-)

In my view, It’s the Columbo Principle in print.

The afterthought. The Oh yeah……before I forget…….

The “also” – the “one last thing”….the kooky conclusion that creates curiosity……and for some odd reason, simultaneously it’s also reassuring, seems personal and implies trust.

Am I sure THAT’S why it works?

No – I’m not a cognitive psychotherapist, ( but my sister is) but I DO write killer article titles in my sleep, and I AM obsessive compulsive about finding familiar formulas that are easy to replicate.

Trust me when I tell you, It works – it will work for you, I’ve never shared it with my readers before– but it this little tip alone will do more for your financial future online than the next 3 e books you buy, I promise you that.

- 11 Any other good article title ideas?

Sure, lots.

You are going to have to forgive our slight descent into the abyss of the profane – but, I’m a big fan of the “Who the Hell do YOU think you Are?” approach as well.

What is it? Very simple. I introduce myself in the article like this:

• Medifast Diet Tips: Lose Weight on Medifast Quickly. (Diet Tips I’ve Been Asked to Share with You)
• Medifast Diet Strategies: You’ll Lose Weight Quickly with These For Sure(I’ve talked about these for years)

(note: I’m emphasizing the “I’ve” just for illustration purposes)

It works because people read it – and in the sordid sea of sameness where everyone else’s article live – they scratch their heads and say to themselves-

“who the H**ll are you?” (Only they probably don’t use the asterisk..:-)

It works because it implies authority, insider information perhaps, feelings of grandeur, and a big ego….but MOST importantly, curiosity.

Who are you…and why should I care?

I better open up and find out, right? Right.

- 12 Do you link your keywords to the home page, or internal pages, neither or both?

All of the above.

Linking to your home page is valuable – but NOT the very best practice from a SEO standpoint – and MORE importantly – not the best from a conversion standpoint which is what we care most about.

For example – if you have a blog on psychic phenomena – which runs the gamut between MANY different paranormal topics ( i.e. – psychic readings and developing psychic powers are VASTLY different “universes” in terms of the marketplace – yet, may still fall under the umbrella of one planet style site)

So -

The keyword phrase- “psychic development home study course” would be MUCH better if linked to a singular blog post, or category archive – of psychic development – or even better – psychic development courses, or even, if you are diligent and the volume is there, the specific phrase match itself -”psychic development home study course” etc.

If you are doing a root level redirection on an affiliate product, the above is a bit less important obviously, but if you are able to redirect STRAIGHT to a particular product or page on the vendor site that speaks to that specific keyword, obviously your conversions will go UP as well.

(note: This is somewhat difficult without using redirection and link cloaking scripts – which I recommend you DON’T do with Article Directories like EZA, mostly because they don’t like it, and you’ll erode your author trust if you do. They DO allow root redirection, but frown on ( and will reject) articles that employ popular link cloaking scripts that can do the above task with elegant ease. )

Similarly -

If you are using a landing page/opt in/name squeeze strategy instead – you would do the same thing, and simply optimize your landing or squeeze page with the headline text and promise of information on psychic development courses.

A good strategy here would be to create a reasonably identical 10 or 15 landing pages that had the various derivations of your primary keywords in the h1 text and opt in headline at the top of the page and form(s) – and keep the rest of the body copy the same. Your opt in percentage will go UP exponentially – your workload….NOT so much.

This is a more complex topic – and depending on how active you are going to be in a niche, deserves proper treatment elsewhere to comprehensively be considered good advice!

13 How About When You Are going Straight to the Affiliate Offer From the Resource Box? Do You use the URL? What about keywords? Are they still important?

No, and no.

If you are redirecting straight to the affiliate offer, you don’t care about the keywords you are using to link up ( as you are not trying to to optimize the affiliates page – nor does advertising the URL really matter either. (even though some article aggregators may strip out your link)

I would focus SIMPLY on playing with the most powerful text phrases that compel, cajole and coerce a kick ass click through rate and not worry about much else.

- 14 What is your favorite color? How about favorite food?

I tend to gravitate to lots of black. I think it compliments my smoldering good looks, plus it’s very slimming. I’m a big fan of sushi. And I love fruity candy like Mike and Ike’s, Dot’s, Star burst and occasionally a Laffy Taffy on special occasions.

- 15 If you are selling an Affiliate Product – what do you give away to get people to sign up for your list? Do you just package the same articles into a short e-course?

No.

Or at least not optimally.

You should look for affiliate products that have an existing auto responder sequence or course that is ready to drop in to your own follow up series. If they don’t have one within the affiliate toolkit they offer, simply go to THEIR landing page and see if they are collecting names themselves.

If so – simply opt in to THEIR sequence, and then use the emails they are sending you as the base template for yours – and make simple re-writes to ensure compliance.

Note: if they DON’T have an affiliate cut and paste email sequence to use, but you are selling THEIR products and services via your content, often they won’t mind if you simply use their sequence verbatim, but it’s still always nice to ask.

If it’s a problem – re-write to suit. If there is NO sequence available at all and you still want to collect names, and DON’T know how to craft your own messages, find a similar, or analogous product or service that does – sign up for the list to receive the emails – and then re-write these to sell the product you want.

(or of course – simply sell the one that does instead..:-)

- 16 Do You Put all of the Course Content in the Email Itself – or do put the content on a separate web page or blog post?

I Always put it on a separate web page. Several Reasons why.

• People tend NOT to read long emails – but WILL read longer sales copy that can be broken down, and aesthetically improved, optimized and beautified with formatting, graphics, etc on a traditional sales page or website.
•  Shorter emails that link out are easier to write – and you are more likely to do it.
•  It converts FAR better for me. 7-10 short emails linking out to 7-10 highly focused static pages, each with a very specific call to action, and each using the same template, same offer, graphic, guarantee, etc – the only thing that changes being the unique content on each page of the sequence.

An added benefit is you will have pages on your site that will potentially rank ( and rank well if you work on them) for the underlying offer being promoted. ( which means free traffic – and passive, effortless income to boot down the road….which is really our ultimate goal)

 

- 17 Do you recommend buying article templates? If so….Which ones are the best?

No. Ask questions with every article and you will never run out of tangential ways to tackle the very same topics in new and powerful ways.

Stick your keywords up front, and ask the question after the colon. You don’t need anything more than this to turn ON the success spicket and let it flow for a LONG time.

Primary Keyword Phrase: Article Marketing

Article Marketing: How Can I Make Real Money Writing Articles Online?

Derivations of Primary Keyword Phrase:

• Article Marketing Scams: Does Article Marketing really work? (Wow – This Is Interesting!)
• Article marketing Secrets: What is the best way to Make Money With Articles.? (These are Good!)
• Article Marketing Ideas: Where Can I Get Good Ideas for Online Marketing Articles? ( Best for Newbies)

Remember – keywords up front – then ask a question (and answer) a question you KNOW the reader has.

- 18 How about using Lists – and “mistakes, myths and misconceptions” for article titles, and resource box text?

Yes – this works well too. 3,5,7 “blank”mistakes ( and how to fix them) is a tried and true template for copy writing success and works well too.

Myths, things to avoid, things to do, common misconceptions and all of those sorts of boilerplate approaches are effective. Don’t over think your titles, – pick a path – don’t worry about perfection ( it doesn’t exist) and crank them out!

I’m often surprised at just how well SOME articles will do relative to others……and if I over think and over rely the whole process rather than allow for some experimentation, you’ll invariably cut yourself ( and your profits) way short.

Plus you’ll miss the all important opportunity to learn something new….which is ALWAYS, I dare say, the most important part of this process overall.

Remember…….

Test them all – as some niches are a bit more particular than others, and you may find your results vacillate wildly industry to industry.

Sometimes women, for example, will be turned off by a resource box, or an article title template than men simply love.

Or of course – visa versa.

For example – “crush your competition” may be the sort of testosterone fueled terminology that works GREAT for men – but turns women south in a hurry.

Test your titles – and your resource boxes -and apply what you see works best for you.

- 19 Are motivational articles good for selling things?

No – not really. The PROFIT is in the pain, unfortunately.

It’s much easier to exacerbate peoples fears to motivate them to make a buying decision, rather than making them feel good and asking nicely.

For Example……

If you tell someone they are fat – and their lives are going to be statistically cut short by a factor of 15% – or 9 years on average – and you ask them to picture what it’s going to feel like to miss all of those special occasions, a grandson’s graduation– or a daughters wedding – or the simple joys of a warm summer day – simply because they refuse to go on a diet now– that is FAR more compelling than telling them their thighs will shrink in time for bikini season.

If it bleeds – it leads – and that’s worked very effectively for centuries in our Churches, Synagogues, our evening news, and not surprisingly – it works very well with selling affiliate marketing products online as well…:-)

- 20 How Many Article Directories Should I Submit To? One, Two…..Twenty?

Depends on your strategy. I tend to stick to ONE major directory – EzineArticles.Com, and I re purpose my content across other similar (non article directory) channels as well.

Why EZA?

Easy.

They rank the best, and FASTEST and have the BEST page trust and ninja internal system for handling, categorizing and distributing your article content. Google loves them, (which is very important to you and I ) and I do believe they have the internal fuel and fire to keep this up for years to come.

The more ranking power the directory has with the search engines, the better your content is going to do when you piggyback off of that page rank to get your OWN stuff out, in front of the masses AND in a hurry!

(Note: Secondary directories are ok – but I’d rather you see you re purpose and rewrite the same content and create a blog, Squidoo lenses, and turn your article content into creative islands of information you can distribute with effective ease. The more times you re-post the same content on smaller article directories, the more you are going to dilute it’s value)

– 21 Why Even Post To ANY Article Directories at all? Won’t I do Better Simply Posting all of my own content on my OWN sites instead?

Maybe – but not NEARLY as quickly. As we just discussed in the preceding question, Article directories, or more specifically, the BIG and trusted article directories will almost ALWAYS, outrank your sites in the search engines and FAR faster than you will rank on your own.

An article submission on Ezinearticles.Com may rank on the first page of Google for your primary keywords within 24 hours. That same article on your own site, may have to wait WEEKS to be discovered and rank ANYWHERE on the search engine results page, and if a competitive phrase, will probably require a lot more work to stay there.

 

-22 How do You set Up a Traditional Affiliate Campaign With Article Marketing

- Install WordPress on either a sub domain ( blog.yourdomainhere.com) or on a blog directory (yourdomainhere.com/blog)

Protect the root always.

(Why? Flexibility. EZA will let you redirect from the root – but NOT from anywhere else on the domain. This means that you can start a new campaign with root level redirection for fast and easy affiliate profits, you can swap it out for an opt in form if affiliate redirect is NOT working, or test these, or other approaches to your hearts content as you test and scale up the campaign.)

- On the blog directory – you will be posting the article content that you are creating – and using the inherent power that blogs offer to get this content out and indexed in a hurry.

(In a perfect world, you’ll re-write these articles about 25% when you post them on your site as well.)

You’ll be sending your article resource box to either the root for re-direction, or the root for name squeeze, with OCCASIONAL posts to the blog for indexing and readership.

You can use mass article submission tools and services ( like articlemarketer.com) to generate huge back links to the blog directory and content.

Eventually, when the site has aged some and has a bit of “respect” – you will want to swap out any redirection pages completely, and use the root for a site map style page with links to your internal pages, a welcome page, or a simple opt in, a video message, etc…..whatever feels most relevant and rewarding to both you and your home paged traffic.

Ending and After Thoughts!

Thanks for reading…..I hope you’ve learned something new.

There are of course LOTS more strategies that you can employ to successfully high step the hurdles that most of us faced early on…………

Here is one last article from my personal blog – on testing landing pages and titles and affiliate offers that many folks commented or emailed me to say they enjoyed.

Here it is below in it’s entirety, and I hope it serves you similarly as well……enjoy!

- How to Test Your Landing Page Conversions for FREE while Everyone Else Pays Through the Nose

(note: to see the images associated with this article, please visit the post above on our blog)

Let’s look at some questions I’ve gotten about the article marketing examples I’ve posted, including I dare say, a phone call or two with a pretty active SEO who was phenomenally nice and gracious…but, who said he never uses them for his own ( fairly significant) client campaigns, which I frankly don’t understand Understand.

Testing is the lifeblood of all Internet marketing momentum, and short of dropping some serious coin on PPC, I know of NO other way of generating a boatload of backsides to your offer reasonably quickly, and testing the responsiveness with hard core, real time results.
Anyone who thinks social networks are a better way of doing the same, is simply stealing your (or somebody else’s) money.

The beauty of this strategy is that it’s drop dead simple to implement, I’ve done much of my best article marketing campaigns after downing a bottle of tequila and sobbing uncontrollably at what has become of my life.

And trust me, that’s usually before lunch, so if I can do this, so too can you..:-)

I am going to give you the exact steps you need to not only amp up your article marketing efforts, I’m going to simply show you how you can extrapolate the results to quickly and easily integrate into your PPC landing pages, your email sequence, and so on…

Once you have a reasonably large sample of people from which to draw results, it becomes equally as reasonable statistically to prognosticate the same on a larger sampling – i.e – your list, your squeeze page, your forum post sig file, your offline postcard, radio spot, strip club pick up line, etc.

It works, it works well, it works fast, and I truly, with every fabric of my being, believe it is harder to muck this up than do it well, once you commit yourself to the pursuit of unwavering excellence in it’s achievement. Read on as we take a closer look.

.
- Pick your Niche and do your keyword research

Pick the 3 keyword titles that are most important for you to own in this market

Write 3 article Titles for each Keyword Phrase on PAPER…step away from the keyboard, son ( note: I do much more than 3 & 3 but for simplicity, and this illustration, it is sufficient)

- Create a new pen name in your EzineArticles.Com account

On your piece of PAPER, write out three unique resource boxes.

Fill in the resource boxes you just created in your new pen names global settings, one per each allowable slot ( they give you 3 for each author)

Sit down at your computer, put on your i pod, turn off the TV and simply start banging on the keyboard until you have your first 3 articles done.

Submit these 3 articles to your author account bin, BUT use a unique resource box for each ( each of the 3 you just created)

Repeat this process for the remaining articles, remembering to use a different resource box for each unique article.

What do you have when your done?

Quite simple.

You have a combination of three unique "calls to action" in each resource box, and with a little luck, if you are a decent copywriter, 9 solid article titles that could easily make for your squeeze page headline, or your million dollar product launch headline, or just about any other direct response result oriented activity that you need to have a strong compelling offer both above the fold…and below.

Your resource box?

The very same thing.

You have three variations of a call to action that you can test, track, tweak and measure immediately, in relatively real time without having to pronounce tagucci properly when your showing off to your friends and family.

But…your not quite ready yet, because you have no idea what works, and what doesn’t’. The way you’ll know, like me – is watching the results. I often find that like Fox News on election night, I’m surprised at how things actually work out when the dust settles.

Often the stuff I think is my best writing, and strongest marketing message…simply isn’t.

The stuff that is almost throwaway, often out pulls everything.

And believe me, if you are scaling out anything of significance, this is the sort of stuff you NEED to know before you spend a buck a click on a PPC campaign, or worse, if you are like me and work with clients….advise THEM to spend money on a message fated to fall flat on it’s face.

Take a look at some of my initial results from a recent campaign that began a few days ago ( on April 2):

As you can see from the above, one article with only a VERY slight variation of the title text resulted in almost DOUBLE the views….meaning the title was much more robust than the other, but had SIGNIFICANTLY lower percentage of clicks through to our landing page on the offer.

What does that tell me?

Simple – headline: Article 1.

Resource box: Article 2.

And this is, to be honest, a pretty bad CTR as well – I’m unhappy with all of them as it’s clearly not my best work. ( some of the examples I posted last week were closer to 50% and I’ve had other campaigns in more salacious markets that have been over 70% consistently)

How significant is this kind of intelligence to me?

It’s everything. The blood of my business.

If I can’t coerce, cajole, ca noodle and compel people to take action on my offer I’ll be stealing from the free granola bin in supermarkets again in no time.

What happens when you scale out results that are sub par over a longer stretch of time? If you look at the images below, you’ll see that going back to November, this campaign ( which I’ve since rectified to some degree) started so badly on the CTR side that for 21,000+ views, I only managed to convince 4% of them to read more by clicking through…and this is terrible, even for people with a small fraction of my creative cognitive abilities.

The one on top, like the first example, a decent amount of views, better conversions, yet still not good enough.

(note: Please check the article on our blog for the associated images – www.KarmicConsulting.Net)

How does this give me an advantage over most people playing around on the fringes of real marketing magic..?

By doing enough of the above, I know what works. Maybe not right away, maybe I need to revise, restructure, recalibrate and rewrite a whole lot of stuff, but eventually, by mixing and matching the disparate parts together, I will have a winner. And I also have a boatload of content to use, re purpose and redistribute as a result.

And so can you if you do the same thing.

While everyone else is talking about Google slaps, and quality scores, and losing their ass on poorly planned PPC projects, you’ll have offers that speak to your market…and NOT because you bought a bucket of BS in a box from some guy selling a 2000 Dollar E course, but because you TESTED it yourself, tweaked the results, and optimized the outcome.

And that’s what I call Success!

~The End~

Thanks for reading!  This post has been reprinted from our FREE E Book on making money with articles, as a courtesy to those of you who did not get it the first time around in Novermber of 2008 – and who wanted access to a FREE and simple system for easy profits WITHOUT having to spend an arm and a leg to get there. 

Learn anything new? Please let us know! Stop by our blog at KarmicConsulting.Net and share your thoughts.

And Keep your eyes out for new reports, success strategies and more that are coming…..truly giving you the tools, tips and techniques YOU need for transformation, both in your business, AND in your life!

Don’t hesitate to drop me a note personally with any thoughts, suggestions, ideas or improvements.